13

In August my oldest turned 13, and wow. I cannot accurately describe a 13 year old boy except, WOW. I hesitated for so long to write this because I'm aware some day he will stumble on this blog and read all about himself, his mom, and his family, but I have to document 13 at some point.

I am technically an only child. Adding to that, I'm a female who never spent overtly large amounts of time with 13 year old boys, (my best friend Jeremy was around a lot, but I missed a lot of the tantrum melt down stuff that must have happened at home), and I'm lost with boys.

It felt as if the day he turned 13 a switch flipped, and overnight he became an entirely different person. My son is no 5' 8", he has a size 10 foot, and a size 20 attitude. His mood is insane. It goes from happy hugs, to angry door slamming, to frustration, sadness, happy, and mad all in the span of four minutes. His brain is changing and his sense of self preservation isn't growing at the same rate as his urge to be defiant. I believe girls learn faster when to stop and save themselves. My son, no way. Even with clear, loud warnings that he's approaching danger territory he will dive head first violently into what can only end in trouble. If A+B+C = Being grounded, and he gets though A, is part of the way through B with several warnings, I promise you he will still purposefully dance across C just because he can. Then when the inevitable grounding happens he will be angry and indignant, as if it's my fault he intentionally broke the rules and had to suffer the consequences. I tell him all the time, "boy, if it was me I would stop now." He doesn't though, he pushes just a little bit more, which never fails to amaze me.

Add into the mix that we are dealing with what I believe is a strong case of ADHD (he's going through testing) and the result is pure chaos. I'm ADHD and all of the things that make me impossible to live with, are occurring in him, when the two of us get into a disagreement it's a level past chaos, because neither of us know what to do. We both want the last word, we both misinterpret we both get so angry so fast because we have so many feelings, and it results in an argument that accomplishes nothing. It's like asking one blind person to help another. I can't even help myself yet kiddo, how am I supposed to help you not become me? It's a shit show to the max.

I probably need a whole separate post dedicated to the females of his generation, because they are a sad sorry specimen and I feel sorry for my son having to grow up in this social media age where girls send mixed signals, screen shots, and lies. Growing up at my age I was forced to talk on the phone to boys and friends. Forced to hear their voice, their linguistics. We undertsood tone and connotation. Kids now are misinterpreting text messages left and right, then getting face to face and not knowing how to talk to each other, and it's sad to witness.

Thirteen year old boys are learning how to hide things. They are learning to twist the truth. They are learning to be literal. If there is cheese on the counter, the tortillas are open, and the sour cream is out, and you ask "who ate a quesadilla and left this mess?" They have figured out they can say "not me," because they shaped their quesadilla like a burrito, and you didn't ask about a burrito, only a quesadilla, so technically they aren't lying. If you ask them to shake the crumbs off their place mat, they will dump their placemat straight onto the floor. When you ask in horror why they would do that, rather than shake it over the trash like they have EVERY OTHER NIGHT FOR 12 YEARS, they will reply, "you only said shake it off, not where, so I did nothing wrong, you need to give better directions." Somehow you will be left scratching your head wondering when you became the wrong one, and they became the right one, even though, you are pretty sure you're still supposed to be right.

I've spent the last month in a constant state of confusion. I know this is a phase, and soon his brain and logic will catch up with each other and level out. The only problem is, that will happen right around the time his little brother turns thirteen.

posted on Jan. 9, 2019

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